Retail veteran’s rise shows Big Lots workers a career path

Nathan Graham started as a cashier at Kwik Check while he was a senior in high school and, 22 years later, became director of human resources at Texas retailer TXB. NACS Magazine profiled him in August 2026. For Big Lots workers, that path runs from front-line retail into management, training, and human resources by building skills and responsibility.

Why this kind of rise matters at Big Lots

Big Lots presents itself as a place where that kind of movement is possible. Its jobs page uses the line, “do big! things in your next career,” and its career materials point to openings in store operations, management, and human resources. On LinkedIn, Big Lots lists itself as a retail employer headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, with 10,001+ employees and 90,564 followers.

A workforce that large, spread across stores, districts, and support functions, creates multiple ways to advance without leaving retail. A cashier who learns the cadence of the floor, then moves into keyholder, shift lead, assistant manager, trainer, or HR work is following a real pattern in the industry, not a fantasy path. Graham started at the register, stayed with one company through more than two decades, and ended up in a job that requires people judgment as much as store knowledge.

The skills that travel from the floor to leadership

The strongest lesson in Graham’s rise is that retail experience carries transfer value. Someone who has run a register knows customer flow, the pressure of a line building up, and the reality of making decisions while the store is busy and short on backup. Someone who has worked different store roles also understands what policies feel like when they hit the floor, which is a different kind of credibility than a manager who has only seen the handbook.

That credibility matters when a worker moves into HR or operations. Employees often listen differently to a leader who has covered a break, handled a frustrated shopper, or figured out how to keep a shift moving when staffing is tight. Graham’s path suggests that the people who rise are often the ones who learn to see the business from both sides: how corporate policy is written, and how it lands with the associate at the counter.

Big Lots’ own job listings reinforce that point. Frontline roles commonly call for customer service, communication, flexible scheduling, cashiering, stocking, and day-to-day operational work. Assistant manager and district manager postings, meanwhile, mention hiring, training, development, and oversight.

Practical moves that build a path upward

Graham’s career arc points to habits that build promotion paths. The habits that tend to matter are plain, but they have to be practiced consistently. Showing up reliably builds trust. Learning more than one task makes you useful outside one narrow assignment. Volunteering for responsibility signals that you are ready for more than a single lane.

A Big Lots associate trying to follow that path can think in terms of the next role, not just the current one:

• Master the basics first, especially cashiering, stocking, customer service, and closing or opening routines.

• Ask to learn other parts of the store, including receiving, recovery, and floor coverage.

• Take on stretch work such as training a new hire, leading a rush, or helping solve a scheduling problem.

• Pay attention to how managers handle conflict, staffing, and communication, because those are the skills that carry into supervision and HR.

• Look for openings in store operations, management, and human resources, since those are the functions Big Lots already names in its career materials.

Retail careers are often nonlinear. A worker does not have to move in a straight line from cashier to manager to stay on track. Sometimes the better move is from the floor into a support role where store experience becomes more valuable, not less.

Why the company backdrop makes this advice sharper

For Big Lots employees, the question of career growth has been shaped by a difficult corporate stretch. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 9, 2024. On January 9, 2025, Gordon Brothers said it had completed the purchase of Big Lots and facilitated a going-concern sale that preserved the brand and kept hundreds of stores in operation. The deal could prevent thousands of layoffs. On April 29, 2025, Big Lots planned to reopen 132 more stores in May under new ownership.

The legal process kept moving after that. Kroll’s case site lists the Chapter 11 case as converted to Chapter 7 effective November 10, 2025.